With two films about the Indonesian genocide, the Oscar-nominated ‘The Act of Killing’ and this month’s ‘The Look of Silence,’ director Joshua Oppenheimer — aided by an anonymous codirector — shines light on an unspeakable tragedy

In 2011, 12-year-old Garrett Phillips was killed in his upstate New York home. Years passed with no arrest, and now Nick Hillary, a former college soccer coach and an ex-boyfriend of Phillips’s mother, awaits trial on a murder charge. But Hillary and a vocal group of supporters say that he has been wrongfully accused.

All Hail Megatron: The Rise of Calvin Johnson

There’s a certain air of anonymity to most NFL players. Outside of quarterbacks (Ben Roethlisberger’s recklessness, Tom Brady’s cool), these masked men, by choice or by circumstance (they are, after all, masked) don’t exhibit a ton of personality. And fans aren’t all that bothered, right? One could argue, much to Arian Foster’s dismay, that the stat/fantasy value of a player is way more important to fans these days than the person who is putting up the numbers. It’s a faceless league right now. And that’s why Calvin Johnson is the perfect face for it.

Megatron is his nickname, and it’s a tribute to his utterly trill style of play that he can make such a dork-tastic moniker sound cool. Lining up for the Detroit Lions, in their metallic blue and silver, with a visor obscuring his face, Johnson practically transcends anonymity into an almost robotic kind of cool. He is the rise of the machines. He’s not a vessel for your fantasy team — he’s a footballing fantasy.

People are quite obviously taking notice, and not just the guy sitting next to you at The Mean Fiddler who spits out upside-down nachos every time Johnson makes another go-go-Gadget grab.

Previously From Chris Ryan

Chris Ryan is a staff writer for Grantland. Follow him on Twitter at @chrisryan77.

This season has been Johnson’s coming-out party, due in no small part to the telepathic relationship he has developed with Stafford. Their electric connection reminds me of Daunte Culpepper and Randy Moss. Last Sunday, it probably reminded a few people in Minnesota, as well.

When asked about it later, Johnson was pretty cool and impersonal about the whole thing. “We know we have the firepower and we showed it.” How very … robotic. Makes you wonder, who was that masked man? I actually don’t care all that much. I just want to watch him play.

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